


Highway Hypnosis

by Carbon65



Category: Teen Titans - All Media Types, Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Catholic Guilt, Coming of Age, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Parent-Child Relationship, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 14:20:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17830187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbon65/pseuds/Carbon65
Summary: Somebody had once told him that growing up was about discovering that your parents were human: not angels or heros, not monsters, just men. He knows he’d laughed, and said something aboutknowinghis guardian was a hero.Or, Dick tries to make peace with the fact that he decided to take a random orphan on the run.





	Highway Hypnosis

There’s a kid asleep in the passenger seat of his Porsche, the black hoodie pulled across her face and her head pillowed on her arms. There’s a goddamn kid asleep in his passenger seat, one who just lost the only mother she knew, who is on the run and afraid, who can do things other people can’t. There’s a goddamn kid asleep in his passenger seat, and he’s ready to break out his suit and break his promise to save her. When he glaces up into the rear view mirror to see the blue Michigan sign - beautiful peninsula, right - he catches sight of himself in the mirror. And, he swears he almost sees those piercing blue eyes and that shock of black hair and that patrician nose. He almost hear the smooth baritone whisper, _You’re just like me, kid. You’re just like me. And, Im fucking sorry._ He wants to say something, wants to do something. But, he can’t because there’s a goddamn teenager asleep in his car, hungry and hurting and lost. And, he doesn’t want to wake her with his demons, not when she’s got a healthy collection of her own.

Somebody - probably one of those kiddie shrinks that Alfred or a social worker had insisted he talk to after his parent’s death, or maybe a teacher at school, or hell, maybe even Donna - somebody had once told him that growing up was about discovering that your parents were human: not angels or heros, not monsters, just men. He knows he’d laughed, and said something about _knowing_ his guardian was a hero. So, it was probably Donna. He was pretty careful about that with almost everyone. Up to and including Donna Troy. 

The thing is… the thing is that John and Mary Grayson never _had_ to become human. They’re these… well, they’re not perfect, but Dick thinks he’d hate them if they were. His parents are these, like the greek gods he learned about in tenth grade english. Imperfect but larger than life. A man and a woman who fly through the sky like angels, who never let their feet touch the ground even when they weren’t on the trapeze. His father was a good man. His mother loved him. And, because of that and the age when they died, and the fact that there was someone to blame… because of all those things, his parents never had to become human. They live in some special pantheon for dead parents and dead children and dead pets where no one ever has to plummet from grace. Because they already plummeted from the acid frayed ropes in the big top.

With B, well, it’s always been more complicated with B. And with Alfred. At first, they were… well, not monsters exactly. He’s met monsters and they weren’t then. They just weren’t his parents and he hated them for that. He’d been ten and still very much a child. Part of him had believed with all its might that what’d he’s seen that April afternoon was a lie, and if he just ran far enough and hard enough, they’d be there, waiting for him. That if he was good enough, and did what he was told, someone would tell them and they’d come back. That if he was bad enough, mean enough, daring enough, that Tony Zucco - who was more monster than man - would come for him, and he could go home. Not to the place everyone seems to keep calling home: the empty, echoing house full of paintings of dead people and furniture that was as uncomfortable as it was expensive, but back to his parent’s trailer and his rickety little bed and the sound of his father’s snores.

He was a brat, for such a long time. He couldn’t blame his child self, though. Not really. Bruce had wandered into the Gotham social worker’s office, cool calm and completely collected and walked out with a kid. Like, that was supposed to be easy or something. Dick hated how easy it had been for B, how almost accidental it felt. Like Bruce Wayne had gone out to buy a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread and accidentally picked up a preteen kid who’d just happened to have lost his parents in a horrible tragedy. Like that was on-brand for B or something. (Although, actually, given the rumors he’s been hearing about someone new running around in his old suit and his old gig…) He sometimes wonders if B remembers at all. Or if the day Dick came to live at Wayne manor is just one more day for him. It could be either way: he doesn’t have a gotcha day, didn’t even know they existed until the Waynette of the week asked about it when he was fifteen. Well… he supposes he does. He just doesn’t remember.

He looks at the little girl beside him - and damn, when did fourteen start looking so young? He remembers being fourteen and feeling very much convinced that he was no longer a child, and no one should ever treat him that way again. But damn it, no matter what she says, no matter what he would have said - fourteen is so young, and she looks peaceful sleeping. And he wants to demand of himself - and hell, demand of Bruce while he’s at it - what gives them the right to drag children into this stupid goddamn thing. Although he supposes that Rachel is in the middle of it, and there’s nothing he can do about that, other than try to protect her as much as he can. And, that’s why he’s leaving her with Hank and Dawn, he tries to reason with himself. He’s keeping her out because she’s fourteen years old and no fourteen year old should be running around at three am on a school night in brightly colored kevlar looking for trouble. He’s keeping her out because teenagers need to be kept safe and have time to grow up into a teenager by doing stupid shit like climbing on top of baseball dugouts and mixing pop rocks and coke, not doing stupid shit like tracking down people who want to kill them.

...He knows that Bruce hadn’t wanted to tell him. He knows that Bruce fought hard against telling him. That twenty-eight year old Bruce had less willpower than thirteen year old Dick Grayson, and that Bruce thought he’d never have gotten caught… except that B broke his arm as Batman around the same time Dick broke Sammy Murphy’s for calling him a smelly carney trash orphan. (Dick was in a no-shower period, and he _did_ smell, but that wasn’t the point.) They were both stuck in the manor until Dick wrote an apology letter and B concocted a suitable lie to explain to the rest of the world why he was recovering from having two screws put into his radius. 

After that, it hadn’t been as hard to convince Bruce as it should have been. Dick went from sulking by not juggling or climbing on things to sulking by juggling and climbing on things, which he guessed was more effective because even though he should have expected it, it turned out most adults didn’t realize he was _supposed_ to climb on things and toss balls and knives into the air until they flew well above his head. One of the first times B had been truly angry was when he caught Dick juggling the steak knives in the formal dining room. Dick was never sure if it was the in the _formal_ dining room to begin with, the _juggling_ in the formal dining room just down from the Ming Vase, or the juggling _knives_ that left B so angry. Although, shortly after B caught him juggling the steak knives, he got to go on patrol, so maybe that was worth it.

Being Batman’s sidekick involved a surprising amount of morality. There were rules to be followed, to keep you on the straight and narrow. Rules about when to go out. Rules about who to go after. Rules about the state you were supposed to leave people in before you turned them over to the police. Rules about how to get yourself out. Rules about cleaning your equipment and your body and your weapons. Rules about the grades you had to pull if you planned to go on patrol. Rules about the height of buildings you were supposed to jump off of. Rules about not killing people.

Batman had his code that let him sleep peacefully until noon. Bruce had his code, and therefore he doesn’t need guilt. Dick… Dick might not practice anymore. Dick might tense up when someone makes that sign of benediction that the priest made over his parent’s grave. Dick might tear up when he hears the hymn about being raised up on eagle’s wings and held in the palm of His hand, but that doesn’t mean he believes. However, ten years was more than long enough to instill a sense of guilt. A sense of shame. A sense that there was a right thing, and sometimes the _right_ thing and the rules weren’t the same, and when that happened, you had to do what was right. Long enough to believe in a God of Justice, and a God of Mercy, and to understand that sometimes the answer was that God could be Merciful because the devil was Just. 

Batman taught Robin his code, and Robin clung to it like a drowning man. He taught him the code, and Robin didn’t question it, didn’t ask about it, at all. Dick Grayson pushed boundaries. He stayed out late on the nights he wasn’t on patrol. He and Donna got drunk on some very cheap wine coolers and some very expensive whiskey and dared each other to do stupider and stupider things until they collapsed in a giggling heap in the middle of the Batcave and Albert helped them up to bed and never said anything to Bruce. Although Dick got a tongue lashing the next time B had a party and pulled out the scotch for Commissioner Gordon. Bruce probably never would have known if Gordon hadn’t said anything. But, when he did, Dick was busted. 

And, when he was 18, he did the thing he knew would piss off his vigilante guardian most: he joined Gotham PD. And then, when it was all too much, when he knew he couldn’t stop himself and his conscience was screaming and his guilt was eating him alive… when all that happened, he left. Because the code wasn’t working anymore, and felt like he couldn’t face himself anymore. And, Detroit… if nothing else, Detroit had needed help as much as Gotham had…

Except now, instead of helping the city, he’s taking in a girl who’s all alone. A girl who needs a father figure but not a father, who needs someone to fight for her and with her. He’s driving a girl who needs a hero along the Ohio turnpike, putting miles between him and the life he was trying to build in that little apartment. And, with every mile, with every minute, he’s afraid he’s driving toward the monster he fears he will become.

At the end of the day, he’s not sure if he can untangle Bruce Wayne from Batman. And, he’s not sure if he ever really grew out of believing in monsters.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to PennySparrow for her beta!
> 
> I am having some hardcore growing up feelings with Dick Grayson right now. ...Its kind of fun to see a character in his late 20s/early 30s who has exactly none of his personal shit together.


End file.
